To Meet the Demand, a photo of Ben
December 5, 2009 2 Comments
Migraines, Travels, and Grad School Life
December 5, 2009 2 Comments
December 2, 2009 3 Comments
November 21, 2009 Leave a Comment
Pioneer Peak is the iconic view in the Valley. It’s on the edge of the hay flats. These fields, filled with dead trees, are a constant reminder of the 1964 Good Friday earthquake. The quake, a 9.2 on the richter scale, caused these fields to drop over 10 feet (if I remember correctly) and killed all the trees. So fields turned into bogs. (If you’re interested in natural disasters and don’t know about this quake, you should check this out. Lots of people don’t know about it, but it’s absolutely fascinating.)
When we first moved to Alaska we lived across the street from my dad’s office in a small neighborhood of other people who also worked with dad. Our house faced Pioneer Peak (here hidden by the house and clouds). On the other side of the house is a HUGE garden and play set. Our first summer we were out playing on the play set with other families while our parents worked in the garden. Eventually one parent looked at a watch. OOPS! It was 11pm. (I was 4, my brother was 1…we probably went to bed around 7 at that time.) That’s what happens when the sun sets at midnight or later.
It took a while, but my parents finally found the house they were looking for. Picture windows that looked over the mountains, a trout stream in the back yard, lots of sunlight, etc. There was also this excellent sledding hill (doesn’t look intimidating from this angle) that was much less cool once these people moved in at the bottom and built their stupid suburban fence.
Alaska has lots of glaciers. Glaciers melt. This means that there is lots of melting glacier water that needs to go somewhere. Usually this means glacial rivers and streams. The Little Su or Little Susitna River is a glacial river that comes from some glacier up by Hatcher’s pass. It’s small, but characteristically, it’s silty and incredibly cold. On a REALLY hot day when we were young, my best friend and I used to get her mom to drive us up to this look out to go “wading.” As much as you can wade around boulders when the water is 40 degrees. When Ben and I went it wasn’t nearly warm enough to stick our toes in, so we settled for dipping our hand in to check the temperature.
There is something somewhat magical about living in a place where this road used to be a “major highway.” Driving was a big part of our lives in Alaska. Emailing Simon yesterday, this is how I described it: We didn’t live in a town, we lived between towns. We ran errands in Wasilla. We went to church in Palmer. Dad worked in Palmer. I went to school between the two towns. In that way, I also don’t feel that I really associated that closely with either town. When Wasilla came on the national stage, that’s how I labeled myself because it was an easy box to fit in. It gave people an image. My parents did the opposite. They spent last year being from Palmer so that they weren’t associated with the same images. Either way, we spent huge amounts of time in the car. Piano lessons, band, sports, concerts, errands, library, work, bookstore, meetings, coffeeshops…all these required 5 to 60 minutes in the car, depending on whether they were at school or as far away as Anchorage. But time in the car isn’t so bad when you have views like this. (It wasn’t nearly as nice on winter days with 40 mph winds and blowing snow…)
This was one of the only hikes, as a child, that my mom could get us to willingly go on. Even then, I think we only successfully made it up once or twice. (The hike is 1.5 hours, max…) At the base is the Reindeer Farm. We never went there.
November 19, 2009 3 Comments
November 4, 2009 8 Comments
Well, loyal readers, it is late. That is because I did not fully understand the terms of Ben’s challenge (so I had to do an extra 30 minutes of exercise…). And because I made dinner, called my parents, and planted some plants in farmville (EVIL EVIL GAME!). Then I checked election results. But I thought that maybe on Tuesdays throughout November I’d go into my archive of old photos and post some of them here. They will, of course, be embarrassing, making it all the better for you, the reader. Today’s theme is Alaska, because I was telling Alaska stories today.
You might be surprised to learn that there is grass in Alaska and it does turn green. Otherwise my dad wouldn’t have had a job. I am wearing thick gloves in this picture though. I’m also hoping that my brother is wearing boots and that his jeans aren’t rolled up, cause that would be really embarrassing for him if they were…
September 13, 2008 5 Comments
In the past few weeks not much has changed with me. Well, I guess that’s really a lie. I’ve left Google and started year 4 of my Ph.D. back in Minnesota. I’m neglecting the blog a little and instead have been doing homework, spending time with friends, and doing a bit of travelling. (I’m in Iowa for the weekend.)
August 11, 2008 2 Comments
I previously mentioned that Ben, Scott, Tricia, and I went hiking in Girdwood. Girdwood is a small town about 45 minutes outside of Anchorage, toward Seward. It is best known, I think, for being the home of the Alyeska Ski Resort, by far the best ski resort in Alaska. I skied there twice in eighth grade and remembered it fondly.
I am not much of a hiker. To be honest, I never have been. After this hike, though, I called my mom to apologize for being such a spoilsport as a kid. (Lots of the whining involved mosquitoes, the rest was bears and tiredness, I believe.) I would have whined my whole way through the hike 10-15 years ago, but now, well, it was simply stunning and worth every minute.
One plant I hadn’t seen for ages was Devil’s Club. It took Tricia and I a while, but she eventually remembered what it was called. We knew it wasn’t something you should touch, we were just blanking on the name.
The Winner Creek hike starts behind the tram up to the top of the mountain and follows along the base of the mountain, later winding to follow streams and ending up at a gorge with a hand tram. Below is Ben pulling himself across.
Back at the resort, we paid to go up to almost the top of the mountain, where the chalet and restaurant are.
The guys were excited about throwing snowballs.
I liked the fact that there were still runs officially open on June 28.
As a kid, I used to think that skiing down from the top (which I never did) would feel like skiing straight into the ocean.
August 7, 2008 9 Comments
My friend Simon wanted me to chime in and tell a story involving people and bears. Given that she is probably the only person reading, I thought I’d better comply.
When I started looking up information about Aialik Bay, I kept reading phrases like this: “All food and drinks must be kept secured in the cabin at all times. Black and brown bears frequent this area.” That wouldn’t be nearly so frightening if there was more civilization, but as I’ve said before, the human population in Aialik Bay is sparse at best.
It’s not that I haven’t faced this issue before. When I was little and we went to go climb Flattop, Mom, in order to keep my brother on the path, mentioned the true story of another little boy who the year before had been mauled by a bear while wandering off the path. Intended result: My brother would stay on the path. Unintended result: I was scared to leave the car and wanted to race back to safety as soon as possible. While tenting in Denali, I wouldn’t let so much as a crumb in the tent for fear of being attacked. Girl Scout camping was the same. My final year at church camp (Bingle Camp) we decided the last night that there were bears outside. (No memory as to if there was data to support this conjecture.) But we were safe, because we were in cabins. Then our helpful counselor told us about a bear who had essentially smashed down a house and mauled the people inside. None of us slept that night. So needless to say, my fear of bears is very deeply ingrained and rational at times, to a degree. (In that bears are, in fact, dangerous and like the smell of food and toothpaste.)
I had been intellectually gearing up for this for several weeks before leaving. I bought a bear bell and we picked up some bear spray in Anchorage. However before leaving for the wilderness, I had several test runs. Ben’s co-worker (and our neighbor) Scott and Scott’s fiance Tricia were also in town for the conference. On Saturday, Scott and Ben headed to the conference while Tricia and I headed to have breakfast with friends of mine and then explore the zoo. The Alaska zoo is pretty cool (more on that some other time). Standing around by the black bears, I thought it would be great to get a fake terror shot. Me facing the bears, very scared. So we took some shots. The photo above was the best of the bunch, although an earlier try is below. (The bear is so small though, it’s just not as impressive.) It’s just as well we did this with the black bears as the brown bears were all asleep. So that was my first interaction with the bears.
The second was a hike on Winner Creek Trail at the base of Mount Alyeska. Scott and Ben picked us up at the zoo and we headed to Girdwood for this hike. (More on that another time.)
Then we were camping in the Mat-Su Valley where I had never seen a bear, so I was pretty relaxed. Heading down to Seward, we stopped at the Russian River where we saw this sign on sturdy fencing:
and
Then we went on a hike to Exit Glacier, without our bear spray or bell, but with plenty of other moving pieces of food with us on the trail. We made it out just fine.
The ranger came by that evening and informed us that there were “lots of black bears in the area.” Again, my nervousness returned. No signs of bears the first day. The second day (the gray day, described below) I went out on a walk on my own and then decided that the seal in the middle of the bay was, in fact, a bear and it was going to come get me, so I went back inside and read my book.
By day three I was a little mad at the bears. I’d showed up, we’d bought bear gear galore, I’d mentally prepared and now there weren’t any bears? Seriously? That wasn’t fair. I decided that I wanted to see a bear with the following stipulations. I wanted to be in the kayak, I wanted to be far away from the bear, and I wanted the bear to be in another cove. (I had forgotten that if a bear had wanted to enter our cabin, it definitely could have.
But alas, no bear. So I had gotten all intellectually prepared and physically prepared and we never even saw a bear in the wild. (We did see a wild moose and humpback and orca whales…) That is my anticlimatic story of bears in Alaska. As a special preview, I’ll let you know that tomorrow, also by Simon’s request, I’ll talk a bit about Mount Marathon and the annual fourth of July run.
August 6, 2008 2 Comments
On our second day in Aialik Bay, the day I wanted to do two biggish kayaking excursions, we woke up to this gray. Gray is fine. I can handle gray. But I was sluggish getting up and then we had to eat and wash dishes, and by then it was raining. Ben went on a long walk down the beach and I curled up in the cabin and started reading The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, an oddly appropriate book. (Appropriate because it takes place in Sitka, AK where the weather is almost always like it is in this photo…gray and rainy.)
So I spent most of the day sleeping or reading and then we went on a long walk down the beach, where this picture was taken. It’s amazing how some places are still so gorgeous even when the weather is less than ideal.
This is a shorter post, but it’s also about nine hours overdue. For that reason, I’ll toss in another gray picture for free. Aialik Bay has lots of dead trees, leftover from the tsunami/earthquake in 1964 that heavily damaged Seward and changed the landscape of much of south central Alaska. (This is not a super optimistic post.) For more information go to the Wikipedia page.
Because my train of thought is leading to more images, I’ll throw in one tsunami related image. This is a new awareness campaign, I believe, in coastal towns near fault lines. (I’ve seen it in Seward and Monterey, CA) For some dark reason, I find it highly amusing. I think it has to do with the visual, not the message.
August 5, 2008 Leave a Comment
At the end of the week in Alaska, Ben and I spent several days at the Aialik Bay Public Use Cabin. When I lived in Alaska, we never did touristy things like go out to the wilderness or go on boat trips. Anything we did along those lines was generally school related. We rarely even went hiking (but that’s a story for another post). So it was a bit of a surprise when Ben explained that his plans for part of our trip involved going to a cabin for two days. The cabin is a three to four hour boat ride from Seward. It has no electricity or running water.
So when Ben said that, I started worrying. This is a place where you are advised to bring an extra four days of food and supplies because if a storm comes in you could be stranded. This has never been my idea of fun. Then I realized that the main thing that people did in Aialik Bay was kayak. Also not my favorite activity.
The last (and only) time I went kayaking was in Montreal in 2003. I went to a kayaking class through the youth hostel. The kayaking was down on the canal. At some point I managed to flip the kayak and as I was leaving the class I had severe pain in my ear. I ended up at the doctor. It turns out that the pressure of the water against my eardrum was dangerously high. Could have burst it.
So, anyways, my memories of kayaking weren’t ideal. Ben had never been kayaking, but in part persuaded by my mom, I decided to go along with the kayaking idea. Because double sea kayaks are more stable than singles, we rented a double for our trip. In the above picture, Ben had just brought the raft we brought our stuff to the beach in back to the boat and is heading back to the cabin.
In weather like this, though, it was hard to not love kayaking. It was warm and dry enough so that we didn’t freeze after climbing into the kayak in bare feet via the ocean. Having two paddlers meant one of us (me) could take a break while the other ensured we didn’t end up on shore or in front of a glacier. Plus I loved kayaking because it was not on land. Land was where the bears were and to be honest, I wanted to stay as far as possible from the bears. But that’s another story.